I remember watching a show, probably unsolved mysteries or something, where a guy was sleeping and his arm spontaneously combusted. He survived, but man talk about a rude awakening! That would totally suck. Anybody else here ever play that PlayStation game Parasite Eve? It's the mitochondria that's causing shc, jp :p

"We contacted the White House to request the Navy Corpsemen to investigate."

Janesville, WI (BNS)- A cemetery in the small Southern Wisconsin city of Janesville has experienced the paranormal phenomenon of spontaneous combustion among its inhabitants. Several graves can be seen bursting into smokey flames for no apparent reason causing neighbors, grave keepers, wildlife, and nearby resting-in-peacers great astonishment.

When questioned, the Chief Cemeterian, Quincy Stonebread, could only reason that these individual corpses had originally requested cremation rather than burial and were finally getting their final wish. Stonebread also stated that he contacted the White House to request that the Navy Corpsemen be called in to investigate. He was told that the Corpsemen were presently otherwise called to emergencies in several other of the 57 states, but would travel by the intercontinental railroad to Janesville as soon as possible.

An agitated crowd began to assemble around the fences of the cemetery. Along with the pitchforks and torches, many also carried crosses, mirrors, wooden stakes, garlic, and anti-zombie AR-15 assault rifles

Fascinating reading. I didn't realize SHC had occured in cars. I always thought it happened indoors. I also didn't know there had been reported cases of SHC where there were witnesses, and that a few people had survived. How bizarre. It seems that in most cases
investigators have found that greasy residue on ceilings and floors. Has that substance ever been scientifically tested? Seems much could be learnd about the SHC process there...

Very recently a man burst in to flames while walking around on the sidewalks of london

HelenaHandBaskettGStudy, on 16 November 2013 - 05:36 PM, said:

Spontaneous Combustion of Graveyard Corpses Rocks Wisconsin Town.

"We contacted the White House to request the Navy Corpsemen to investigate."

Janesville, WI (BNS)- A cemetery in the small Southern Wisconsin city of Janesville has experienced the paranormal phenomenon of spontaneous combustion among its inhabitants. Several graves can be seen bursting into smokey flames for no apparent reason causing neighbors, grave keepers, wildlife, and nearby resting-in-peacers great astonishment.

When questioned, the Chief Cemeterian, Quincy Stonebread, could only reason that these individual corpses had originally requested cremation rather than burial and were finally getting their final wish. Stonebread also stated that he contacted the White House to request that the Navy Corpsemen be called in to investigate. He was told that the Corpsemen were presently otherwise called to emergencies in several other of the 57 states, but would travel by the intercontinental railroad to Janesville as soon as possible.

An agitated crowd began to assemble around the fences of the cemetery. Along with the pitchforks and torches, many also carried crosses, mirrors, wooden stakes, garlic, and anti-zombie AR-15 assault rifles

On July 2, 1951, Mary Reeser, a 67-year-old woman, was found burned to death in her house after her landlady realized that the house's doorknob was extremely hot. The landlady notified the police, and upon entering the home, they found Reeser's remains completely burned into ash, with only one leg remaining. The chair she was sitting in was also destroyed. During the investigation, detectives found that Reeser's temperature was around 3,500 °F (1,930 °C; 2,200 K), which puzzled the investigators, as almost everything else in the room in which Reeser was found remained intact. Reeser took sleeping pills and was also a smoker. A common theory was that she was smoking a cigarette after taking sleeping pills, and then fell asleep while still having a lit cigarette, which would have burned her gown, leading to her death. Investigators also found that the fire had burned a socket, which stopped a clock at 2:26am, suggesting that Reeser had been burned at around that time.

Henry Thomas, a 73-year-old man, was found burned to death in the living room of his council house on the Rassau estate in Ebbw Vale, South Wales, in 1980. His entire body was incinerated, leaving only his skull and a portion of each leg below the knee. The feet and legs were still clothed in socks and trousers. Half of the chair in which he had been sitting was also destroyed. Police forensic officers decided that the incineration of Thomas was due to the wick effect. His death was ruled 'death by burning', as he had plainly inhaled the contents of his own combustion.

In December 2010, the death of Michael Faherty in County Galway, Ireland, was recorded as "spontaneous combustion" by the coroner. The doctor, Ciaran McLoughlin, made this statement at the inquiry into the death: "This fire was thoroughly investigated and I'm left with the conclusion that this fits into the category of spontaneous human combustion, for which there is no adequate explanation."

Via Wikipedia

Quote

10 Cases of Spontaneous Human Combustion

10. The Latest Case
The latest case made headlines in September of this year as the first Irish case of spontaneous human combustion. People found the burned body of an elderly man lying with his head near the furnace of his apartment. Coroners determined, though, that the furnace was not the source of the conflagration, nor was there any accelerant on the body, nor was there any evidence of foul play. This case was typical of spontaneous human combustion in that there were burn marks on the floor and ceiling directly below and above the body, but no other burn marks anywhere in the room.

9. The First Case
The first mention of spontaneous human combustion in the history books is Polonus Vorstius. Polonus was just a regular Italian knight in the late 1400s who liked wine, women, and song. He consumed 'two ladles' of very strong wine one night, and it disagreed with him. People say that he immediately vomited flame, and then burst into flames entirely. No one else seemed to have any problem with the wine, and people were baffled as to how this happened. They're still baffled now.

8. The Gruesome Details
Spontaneous human combustion has claimed the life at least one member of the nobility; Countess Cornelia Di Bandi. The Countess, who lived in the 1700s, was found half way between her bed and her window one morning, with everything except her lower legs and three fingers burned. She had apparently calmly risen from her bed to open the window in the middle of the night, but combusted before she could reach the window. In the room, two candles had been burned - or at least the tallow had been burned. The wicks were left, completely unburned. Soot covered the room, including some bread on a plate that she had left on a table. Just as a indication of how strange the 1700s were; the bread was taken from the plate and offered to a dog. The dog refused to eat it, making it the most sensible player in that incident.

7. Two Disappearances
Ginette Kazmierczak lived with her husband and son in France in the 1970s. When her husband disappeared mysteriously, Ginette contacted the authorities to try to find them. They couldn't find anything. A few days later, while her son was out with some friends, a neighbor found Ginette's body, except for her legs, reduced to ash in an otherwise undisturbed apartment.

6. The Fire Inside
In 1967, a passenger on a bus in England noticed blue flames in the window of an apartment building hallway. She thought it was a gas jet and called the fire brigade. When they got to the place, they supposedly found the body of Robert Francis Bailey, a homeless man. A fireman reported seeing a slit in the man's abdomen from which blue flames were issuing.

5. When spontaneous combustion won a court case
Nicole Millet, the wife of a Parisian innkeeper in 1725, was found after her husband roused the entire inn when he smelled smoke. What was left of her was in the kitchen, almost completely reduced to ash, with the wooden utensils around her unburned. Other accounts have her burned on her straw pallet, with the straw only a little damaged. That looked suspicious, and so her husband was tried and found guilty of murder. On appeal, though, he used the 'spontaneous human combustion' defense, and was exonerated. Nicole's death was found to be due to 'a visitation of God.'

4. A flaming, shrinking skull takes America by storm
In St. Petersburg, Florida, a landlady was making the rounds in her apartment building when she noticed one doorknob was incredibly hot. The tenant, Mary Reeser, did not respond to her calls, and so she called for people to open the door. Inside, she found Reeser's remains, in the middle of a six-foot scorched area of carpet. A chair and an end table in the middle of the scorch mark were upright, indicating that there was no activity. Nearby on the floor, a pile of newspapers were untouched by the flames. The body, on the other hand, was reduced to ash except for a skull and a completely undamaged foot. Some reports, which just may be exaggerated, say that the skull was shrunk down to the size of a teacup.

3. When spontaneous combustion lost a court case
Jack Angel, who had been hospitalized with severe burns, brought a court case against the manufacturer of his hot water heater for three million dollars. He said that he went to check the malfunctioning heater and it blew and scalded him. However, a doctor noted that his body had burned from the inside out, not the outside in. Shortly afterward, he changed his story and said he fell asleep only to wake up with terrible burns all over his body, and sold his story as a survivor of spontaneous human combustion. Was he one of the only people to survive spontaneously combusting?

2. The Twilight Zone could be in an episode of The Twilight Zone
A gentleman in Crown Point, New York actually seemed to spontaneously combust when he was watching an episode of The Twilight Zone television show. There is no report on which episode of The Twilight Zone it was.

1. The witnessed case
There is only one case of human combustion for which there is a witness. A mentally disabled woman lived with her father, who cared for her. One day he saw a flash out of the corner of his eye, and turned to find her on fire. Despite the flames, she continued to quietly sit in a chair, not reacting and not giving any indication she was in pain. The man's attempts to put the fire out left him with burned hands. The woman lived through the combustion, but slipped into a coma and died shortly afterwards. This indicates one of the strangest parts of human combustion. It takes a very hot flame to reduce a human body to ash. Crematoriums have special chambers designed for it. However, in almost all combustions, there's no burns in the room around the body, indicating that the person simply stayed in one place. Whatever the cause of this combustion, it seems to knock people out first.